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Suicide rate: The number of suicides has not increased during the corona pandemic
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Despite the psychological stress of the pandemic, the number of suicides in Germany has not increased in the two years of the corona virus.
This is the conclusion reached by scientists from the University Medical Center in Leipzig, the University Hospital in Ulm and the University of Vienna after evaluating the data of around eleven million people in Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein.
The researchers analyzed data from the beginning of 2017 to the end of 2021 in order to be able to compare the periods before and during the pandemic.
The results were published in the »Deutsches Ärzteblatt«.
There was no evidence of a general increase in the suicide rate among older people compared to the period before the pandemic.
The same applies to children and young people – analogous to findings from Great Britain.
According to the study, the total number of suicides among men fell slightly from 2020 to 2021 compared to 2017 to 2019, and there was a slight increase among women.
In both cases, however, the change was not significant, according to the experts.
decrease between 81 and 90 years
By age group, however, there was a significant decrease in suicides among men between 81 and 90 years of age and a significant increase for those over 90 years of age.
In the group of old men, however, there is a high risk of suicide anyway, the scientists explained.
It is known from the past that economic crises, epidemics or other threat scenarios influence suicide rates.
An increase in suicides was therefore feared in connection with the corona pandemic.
kry/AFP